Keeping customers happy is crucial to ensuring a business' success since happy customers return for further business dealings and provide referrals to potential customers. Hospitals are especially concerned with their patients' satisfaction since the federal government is focusing on providing financial incentives for hospitals to provide better care, including awarding hospitals with high patient satisfaction, while penalizing hospitals with lower levels of patient satisfaction. For example, under the Affordable Care Act of 2010, payments to hospitals that are beneficiaries of Medicare Advantage plans are based on patient satisfaction using a survey provided by the government. Hospitals with high scores will receive a bonus payment, while hospitals with low scores will lose money. Specifically, the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) Survey is a standardized national survey with 32 questions for patients to provide information regarding their hospital experience, which allows comparisons to be made across hospitals using common factors. A portion of payment from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to hospitals subject to the Inpatient Prospective Payment System annual payment is linked to hospital performance, as determined by the HCAHP survey.
Currently, businesses, including hospitals, are able to determine and track customer satisfaction using surveys, either in hardcopy or electronic form. For instance, after a patron has finished dining at a restaurant, an electronic survey may be sent via email to ask the patron to grade multiple services provided by the restaurant, including the taste and quality of food, and customer service. In a further example, hospitals often mail a hardcopy survey to a patient a couple weeks after the patient has been discharged from the hospital.
However, asking a customer for feedback after that customer has already left the business establishment does not allow the business to correct any mistakes or satisfy the customer's concerns during the current visit, which can result in a loss of further patronage by that customer. After the service has been provided and feedback received, a business can try and entice a customer to return by offering discounts or free offers. Yet, sometimes a customer is so dissatisfied that the customer will not return despite the discounts and free offers. In contrast, providing a business with feedback during a customer's visit allows that business to rectify any concerns or dissatisfaction of the customer in a timely manner, which can result in repeat visits by that customer.
Therefore, there is a need for obtaining customer feedback during the customer's visit and determining a satisfaction level of the customer based on the feedback. Preferably, any dissatisfaction of the customer can be resolved during the current visit to encourage further patronage.